


while i sleep (i'll dream of all we had)

by iridiumring92



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Azure Moon Route, M/M, Minor Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Game, Sexual Content, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23338123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridiumring92/pseuds/iridiumring92
Summary: During the war, Claude relinquishes the Alliance and flees to Almyra, leaving Dimitri to act as king. Yet Claude and Dimitri started something back at the academy, and while Dimitri is intent on forgetting it, on giving it up, Claude keeps coming back to visit him in secret.They know they are not meant for one another, but it's too difficult to end it.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not gonna lie i rolled a virtual die to decide which ship to post tonight, and i haven't done multichapter fics in a Long Time, so this is a process haha
> 
> title is from "act one: the queen of fiji" by crywolf

Dimitri receives his first visit from Claude one brisk night, standing on the battlements of the castle in Faerghus and looking out at a sky teeming with stars. He hears and feels the beat of wings before he sees him—clothed in black, new braids in his hair, his green eyes bright as he guides his wyvern to land. He leaps down from the wyvern’s back and launches himself into Dimitri’s arms, gripping hard.

“I missed you,” he says, his voice aching, breaking, into Dimitri’s neck. Dimitri feels his braids and his beard against his skin and holds him, at a loss for words.

“I—I missed you, too,” he says at last, and Claude looks up at him with an expression that is both intensely happy and pained. He lets his hand slip across the back of Dimitri’s neck, into his hair, and Dimitri takes the cue, leaning down to kiss him.

Claude breaks the kiss after a moment, putting his arms around Dimitri again, under his cloak. “Please tell me you haven’t made anyone your queen yet,” he says, and Dimitri knows he doesn’t intend it, but his voice sounds strained.

“No,” Dimitri says. He runs his fingers through Claude’s thick, dark hair. “I’ve avoided all talk of it. There is a lot of restoration to do, of course, although some of my advisors seem to think that my marriage would help with the public’s morale during it all.”

Claude makes a dismissive noise. “Others would call you uncaring, taking a wife while their territories are being rearranged.”

“I’ve told my advisors as much,” Dimitri says. He lets his hands slide down to Claude’s waist and holds him at arm’s length. “Why is it that every time I see you, you’re . . . ?” He feels his face warm, and he somehow can’t force out the words he intended to say.

“I’m what?” Claude asks with a small smirk. “Older? Thicker?”

“I was going to say,” Dimitri breathes, “ _more beautiful_ ,” and then he leans in and kisses the breath out of Claude, as though that will make him forget any such embarrassing words left his mouth.

“I could ask the same of you, Dima,” Claude says, smiling, in between kisses, pulling Dimitri flush against him. He doesn’t stop kissing Dimitri until Dimitri feels a slow, long-buried arousal stir in him. He reels back at the friction of their hips against each other, and when he looks at Claude, he finds him still smiling with swollen lips.

“And you,” he finally asks, his fingers threading gently around Claude’s wrist. “Have you . . . taken any lovers since I last saw you?”

“No lovers,” Claude says, placing a hand on Dimitri’s chest. “Just my memories, and my imagination.”

Dimitri flushes at his words, at the idea that Claude thinks of him like that when he’s away. He’s done the same himself, when he’s desperate or missing Claude or unable to sleep or any number of other things. “Claude . . .”

“Dima,” Claude says, stepping closer, seeming to already know where Dimitri is going with this. “Please, don’t. Don’t ask me if I’m sure you’re the one I want. Tonight isn’t a good night for this discussion.” He plants a chaste kiss on Dimitri’s lips. “It’s cold out here. We should get some rest, and let Noire here get some rest too before tomorrow.”

“You’ll be gone tomorrow?” Dimitri asks, hating how weak his voice sounds.

“Yeah. I don’t want anyone knowing I was here. Besides you,” Claude says, reaching up to touch Dimitri’s jaw. “Can we find somewhere warm?”

Dimitri nods. “Yes. I’m sorry. I should have offered it sooner. You’ve been traveling,” he says, unfastening his cloak and draping it over Claude’s shoulders. He feels a rush of warmth at the way Claude smiles and pulls the cloak around him. “This way.”

* * *

They don’t rest much. There are guards posted outside Dimitri’s door, and he has to go ahead and dismiss them without letting them see Claude. After that, he brings Claude into the room and bolts the door behind them, capturing Claude’s mouth in a kiss immediately and pushing the cloak over his shoulders to the floor. Claude leans into him, hands sliding up under his shirt. Dimitri shivers.

They don’t waste time in undressing each other. Their clothes are on the floor soon enough, and Claude, standing before Dimitri in the room’s scarce light, runs trembling hands over Dimitri’s skin. He traces scars, rubs gentle circles into the juts of his hips.

Dimitri’s eye rakes over Claude’s bare body. It’s been too long since they were together like this, and he is still overwhelmed by the way the past five years have changed Claude—he’s filled out a bit, where during their time at the academy, Dimitri might have described him as skinny. He can also see the slight curves of muscle, probably from all the fighting they had to do. Sparse, dark hair now covers his chest. Dimitri settles his hands on Claude’s waist, taking him in, trying to memorize him.

“My love,” Claude says, softly, pulling Dimitri in for another kiss, and goddess, Dimitri knows he needs Claude to do something, anything, else before he loses himself to this heavy feeling of longing, this knowledge that he’ll only have Claude here with him for the next few hours. “Shall we move?”

“Yes,” Dimitri breathes, and Claude takes his hand to lead him to the bed.

Claude lies back, allowing Dimitri to settle between his legs, and Dimitri runs a hand along Claude’s inner thigh, pressing a kiss to the skin there. He strokes Claude, long, slow movements that leave Claude gasping and arching up into his touch. 

“How do you want me?” Dimitri asks, hesitant, his voice low.

“Like this,” Claude says. “Inside.”

Dimitri exhales a sharp breath, pulling away to dig out the vial of oil he’s been keeping in his drawer. He kneels back on the bed and slicks his fingers with it. Claude hums, watching him, a small smile of satisfaction gracing his lips. He spreads his legs wider to welcome Dimitri in. As Dimitri leans closer and circles a finger around his entrance, Claude sighs, looking much more relaxed than Dimitri feels. 

“Come here,” Claude says softly, sliding a hand up Dimitri’s bare back as he moves in. He stretches up to kiss Dimitri. When he draws back, his eyes are searching. “Is this what you want, too?”

“All I want,” Dimitri says, his voice low and aching, “is to have your skin against mine, and to make you feel good.”

“Dima.” Claude tangles a hand in Dimitri’s hair and smiles a little. “If there’s something else you need, something else you’re not telling me, I’m happy to oblige, you know. I want you to feel good, too.”

Dimitri drops his gaze, turning his eye to the sheets beside them. “I just . . . I don’t know that I’ll be able to rein in my strength.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Claude says. He pulls Dimitri down into a long kiss, reminding Dimitri of the relentless ache between his legs. He kisses Claude’s shoulder, moves back down to kiss his hip, and presses a slick finger into him, slow and firm. Claude gasps and shifts his hips up into Dimitri’s hand. “More, Dima. I want to feel you.”

Dimitri bites the skin along his inner thighs, letting Claude adjust before he adds another finger. Claude whines and bucks his hips, and Dimitri doesn’t hesitate as he pushes two fingers into him, drawing more lovely sounds from Claude’s lips.

By the time he’s added a third, Claude is panting, leaking, gripping the sheets to keep his hands off himself. He makes a disbelieving noise when Dimitri draws his hand back, but that sound quickly turns to a surprised cry when Dimitri leans forward to taste him, to take his tip into his mouth and lick the fluid from his skin.

“Dimitri,” Claude gasps. “Dimitri, I—I need you inside me, _please_.”

Dimitri pulls back, still tasting Claude on his tongue, and hooks one of Claude’s legs over his shoulder as he pushes in. Claude cries out, but when Dimitri slows, he says, “No, more, don’t stop,” and soon after that Dimitri is thrusting into him, the tether that held him back snapping. He moves fast and hard, and Claude pants beneath him, his hand in Dimitri’s hair as he gasps, “Yes, _yes_ , just like that, Dimitri.”

Dimitri grasps him in one hand, stroking in time with his pace, and Claude bites his lip to keep from crying out as he spends between them. Dimitri finishes with a low grunt, trying to keep his own voice down. He collapses on top of Claude, kisses along his collarbones and shoulder.

“Gods, you feel so nice.” Claude smiles and runs his hand up and down Dimitri’s back. “You always feel so nice.”

“You do, too, of course,” Dimitri says, breathless. “I really did miss you, Claude.”

“I didn’t doubt it for a second,” Claude says with a smile and pulls him in, kissing him, touching him, until they’re both strung tight with need again.

* * *

They finally sleep, but just as light begins to return to the sky, Claude wakes Dimitri gently and guides him down once more, his movements languid and unhurried. Dimitri swallows back the sounds he might have made if he were certain they were alone.

“I have to go,” he says when they’ve finished, lying beside Dimitri. “Don’t look at me like that, Dima. I’ll be back, I swear it.” He offers an encouraging smile and pushes strands of hair out of Dimitri’s face. “Get some sleep for me.”

_I wish you could stay,_ Dimitri thinks, but he doesn’t voice the thought. Nothing good can come of it. They can’t make a lifetime of this. They can’t make it official. These stolen moments are all that’s left to them.

“I’ll try,” he says at last.

* * *

Claude has spent many of his nights alone thinking of Dimitri, and he guesses that this won’t change for a while, despite his visit. A little nostalgic and less than willing to return to Almyra right away, he drops into Goneril territory, staying out of sight as much as he can so that he won’t be shot down.

He’s greeted by guards, who tell him that Holst isn’t there when Claude reintroduces himself. He asks to see Hilda, and so they bring him to her, sitting in a room on the far side of the manor and drinking tea.

She shoots up out of her chair when she sees him, nearly knocking it over and upending the tea on the table. “Claude von Riegan!” she exclaims, eyes saucer-wide. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Your brother didn’t tell you?” Claude asks with a smile, though he’s already weary. “After I gave up House Riegan, I left for Almyra. And if anyone asks, I was never here.”

“Why _are_ you here?” HIlda asks, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t tell me it’s because you need something.”

Claude shakes his head. “It’s not. Promise. I just didn’t want to go back quite yet, and it’s hard, not being able to see everyone.”

“I’m sorry,” Hilda says. She sinks back down into her chair, and Claude takes up the one across from her. “Well, you saw Dimitri, at least, didn’t you? Because if you didn’t, I’m sending you to Faerghus right now.”

Claude gives a weak laugh. “Yeah. I saw him.”

“How are things between you two?” Hilda takes a small sip of tea and sets the cup back down. The look in her eyes is concerned, determined, despite her tendency toward laziness. Claude feels the slightest bit embarrassed that her concern would be for him and Dimitri, of all people.

“Well,” Claude says, hesitating, considering his next words, “they’re . . . not as good as they could be, I guess.” He tries not to think too much of the night before, of his own pleasure and Dimitri’s reined-in passion. “But he’s king, and I’m as good as exiled, so I don’t know how much better they can possibly get.”

Hilda sighs and stands from her chair again. “Come here,” she says, and when Claude does, she pulls him into a tight hug. “If there’s anything I can do to help,” she continues as she lets him go, “I will.”

Claude forces a smile. “Coming from you, that’s saying a lot,” he says. Hilda scowls and swats him on the arm. “No, I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I really appreciate it, Hilda.”

Once he’s in the skies again, he tries not to bring their conversation back to mind. It only coaxes the sting of tears to his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Dimitri does not often allow himself to indulge in thoughts of Claude. Not deeply, anyway. They’re distracting, and often, when he lets his mind stray too far, he begins to think of having Claude in his bed.

Tonight, he is too weak, too desperate not to think of it. The rumpled sheets still held Claude’s scent when he woke up in them, and he breathed it in as long as he could. While he was out during the day, someone changed the sheets and remade the bed, taking all traces of Claude with them.

He wraps his fingers around himself and bites back a whimper, thinking of Claude’s hands on him, Claude tracing hungry kisses down his throat and chest and lower. He wonders if someday, Claude will finally stop coming back to Faerghus. Dimitri will be forced to marry so as to carry on the Blaiddyd bloodline. And he’ll think of Claude for years and years, their shared meetings and touches, until the memories grow faint and fade altogether.

Or if things will end worse: someone finding out about Claude and Dimitri’s relationship and punishing them accordingly. The thought makes him wince, and he digs his fingers into his thigh, hard, until the pain forces him to snap out of it. He doesn’t need to worry about such things right now. 

He finishes weakly, his hand aching, and he lies back, the sheets in disarray around him, thinking of Claude, wishing he were there. But he doesn’t know when he will next see Claude, much less when they will next share a bed. He pulls the sheets up over his body and tries to convince himself to sleep.

* * *

If anyone asked—which they won’t, since the only person capable of being so brazen is Hilda, and he doesn’t expect to see her for a while—Claude would say he  _ supplements _ the time in between his meetings with Dimitri. Which usually means that he allows himself his fantasies when he can afford to be distracted, or he saves them until he can lie in bed and go over every detail.

Today was the second kind of day. He couldn’t divide his attention what with important discussions and paperwork happening every three heartbeats, and so he forced himself to lock away all thoughts of Dimitri, promising himself that he could come back to them later.

He does. Lying in bed in the room they’ve given him at the palace in Almyra, he closes his eyes and thinks of Dimitri. His pale skin, the tangles in his blond hair when Claude pulls at it. The scar over his right eye. The scar on his left shoulder, where Edelgard’s dagger pierced his skin. He imagines pulling Dimitri into his lap and tenderly kissing that scar. Imagines Dimitri’s sighs as he does so. 

He thinks of Dimitri’s other scars, silver-white on pale skin, thinks of running his fingers over them, the sounds Dimitri would make at the touch of his hands. He asks his body to remember the feeling of Dimitri’s warm weight over his. His skin sparks with pleasure, and he smiles at the thought, the phantom feeling. He runs hands over his own skin, imagining they’re Dimitri’s, touches to arouse and then to pleasure until he finishes with Dimitri’s name on his lips. His voice is breathy and pitches high, and he wishes Dimitri could be there to kiss him, silence him, as he rides it out.

He sleeps well afterward, but not quite well enough, for he keeps waking and finding the other side of the bed empty.

* * *

Sylvain invites Dimitri to tea. He doesn’t make any mention of Ingrid or Felix, and, indeed, when Dimitri arrives, he finds only Sylvain there. He’s confused, and at first, he sips his tea lightly, hoping to escape this conversation.

“I was certain you’d invite Ingrid and Felix,” Dimitri says, “but since you haven’t, I assume this is about a girl?”

Sylvain has invited him on walks or to tea or dinner in the recent past in order to introduce Dimitri to a girl or to hide from one. Dimitri has grown tired of it. He wants to postpone any kind of courting while they rebuild, or even longer, so that he can continue to see Claude, and only Claude.

“No,” Sylvain says. “Actually, it’s about you, Your Majesty. Do you have a lover?”

“Excuse me?” He shouldn’t be surprised that Sylvain would be direct about something like this, but the question catches him off guard, and he feels a sudden tightness in his chest. Does Sylvain mean to  _ find _ him a lover, or is this about him and Claude?

“I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that people talk,” Sylvain says, “and the word around here is that you dismissed your guards recently, in the middle of the night. Someone heard voices from your room that night, too.”

“And are these things you heard because you were bedding the maids?” Dimitri asks, his tone icy.

“No, no—I wasn’t  _ bedding  _ them, not exactly, I was just—”

“Tell them,” Dimitri says, “ _ all _ of them, to forget what they heard.” He sighs, thinking of something Ingrid mentioned in conversation to him a few weeks back. “And please spend some time with Felix instead.”

“Felix? Why?”

Dimitri rises from his chair. “Sylvain,” he says in a warning tone.

“Okay, okay. I will. I swear.” Sylvain glances at Dimitri’s half-drunk tea. “You’re not going to stay? I thought we were friends, Your Majesty.”

“I need to be alone,” Dimitri says and sweeps out of the room.

* * *

When the people with whom Claude works ask why he’s still in his office late into the night, Claude smiles and claims he’s just catching up on work.

The truth is that he almost never stops writing letters. He corresponds with Byleth, asking what the academy is like these days, sometimes asking their advice. He’s delighted when he receives a letter in their handwriting and usually reads it two or three times before responding, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything.

He writes Hilda, too, and he considers writing Lorenz, but every time he starts to write a letter, he imagines Lorenz’s expression and stops. Claude gave up the Alliance, thereby forfeiting any true positions of leadership there, and then fled without taking responsibility—that’s how Lorenz must see it. He had waited all that time to become the Alliance’s leader, only to have Claude take the position from him and then scatter its remains to the wind.

Finally, he writes Dimitri. He complains of missing him, mostly, but he also tells the lighter stories of his work in Almyra, the things that might take Dimitri’s mind off his own work. Or, when the palace is particularly quiet and Claude’s mind is allowed to wander, he writes more intimate letters, ones he hopes will make Dimitri blush, ones he hopes he’ll read alone. Dimitri rarely responds in kind, but Claude doesn’t mind. His response to Claude’s first letter of this nature was something like,  _ I am sorry, Claude, but I admit I am too embarrassed to write you back. _

Claude saves every response he receives from Dimitri. Over time, he’s learned what Dimitri’s writing is like when he’s feeling stressed, sad, pleased, restless, or in love. His favorites are the letters that strive to be intense and as full of feeling as Claude’s are, but only the keenest eye would spot Dimitri’s caged passion, hidden in words like  _ consumed  _ and  _ feverish _ and  _ burning,  _ sentences like  _ Tonight I feel empty, Claude, and alone, wishing you were here with me. _ Claude traces his fingers over the pages each time, feels Dimitri’s handwriting under his fingertips.

His work continues to lose its luster, especially when he faces near-unending opposition from the others he works with. Nader can vouch for him, make them listen to him, but it’s exhausting, and Claude spends several of his nights lying awake, wishing his homeland could accept him and remembering all the ways it hadn’t in his childhood.

_ One more day,  _ he tells himself each time he finishes his work.  _ One more, and then maybe tomorrow I can see Dimitri.  _ He keeps chasing this thought, letting it pull him forward into the future, day after day. He writes letter after letter at his desk in the half-darkness. He knows he’ll be free to see the people he’s writing at some point—he  _ knows _ it, and this is what grounds him each night as he scribbles away at a new page.

He continues on like this, as the days begin to coalesce into months.

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by 3 songs that i heard when i was driving home one night... "lies" by trifonic, "my time" by bts, and "slaves" by crywolf.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/iridiumring92)


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